


my end and my beginning

by regonym



Category: Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 05:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2801516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regonym/pseuds/regonym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't really know anything about him, is the thing. He had hundreds upon hundreds of days with her, if what he told her is true. </p>
<p>She's had mere minutes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my end and my beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [livii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/livii/gifts).



> Happy holidays, livii! 
> 
> Many thanks to novembersmith for allowing me to drag her into Edge of Tomorrow fandom, flailing with me over Rita, and kindly looking this over when I was panicking. <3

She has never expected to survive the war. 

The day of the energy pulse, she goes about her routine as usual. When the stranger comes up to her on the training grounds, breaking the unspoken taboo of approaching her, she stares at him and demands to know his business. The man says nothing; he has tears in his eyes and is looking at her like she's the only real thing on the planet, and she honestly doesn't know what to think. 

* * *

Rita is twenty-five when the meteor strikes Hamburg. 

It doesn't seem real to her for the first few days, watching events unfold in the media, seeing the reports of alien soldiers and massive casualties. They sweep like an inexorable tide across city after city, sending refugees fleeing before them. 

Rita's parents are among the first wave of the British counter-attack, good career soldiers, both of them. Neither lasts long. She is twenty-seven, and dry-eyed, watching the Mimics advance into territories where her family had once taken vacations and chased each other with cameras and gotten lost. For a long time she works as far away from the war effort as she can. 

Rita is twenty-nine and drunk when joining the UDF suddenly seems like a good idea one night. Her birthday is coming up, after all, and one of the new battle-armours that the talking heads keep touting would make a fine present to herself. 

And then at Verdun Rita is thirty, and thirty, and thirty, for more days than she would care to admit. 

* * *

They travel across the Channel to France, and the beaches are empty. They push inland, to Paris and beyond, and the streets and buildings are littered with unmoving bodies. They meet no resistance. 

She keeps pace with her squad, mechanically, and still doesn't know what to think. Major William Cage's card is burning a hole in her vest pocket, and his words are circling in her head.

* * *

Killing the alpha is agonizing, of course. But it's not the worst death by far.

That honour goes to another loop. She's making what seems like her thousandth attempt to push into the northwest sector of the city, the one she's begun to dream about. 'Dream' might not be the correct term - the visions come to her in the space between the loops, the moments before she wakes up again. She's tried to tell the high command about them, to get support for a bigger strike, but they have no reason to listen to a green recruit. 

Hendrix is at her side, as he always is. Her squad leader has never given up on her, not through training when she seemed so hapless, not through the endless loops where she's suddenly (from his perspective, at least) become terrifyingly good at killing Mimics.

It's that faith that always makes his deaths the most painful. None of the rest of her squad have ever made it very far through the battlefield, and after a certain number of loops she stopped trying to save them. But Hendrix is different; she knows more about him by now than she does her own family. She makes an effort for him, even when it seems hopeless at this point.

They meet a trap in the northwest quadrant. The creature she imagined isn't there, but a swarm of regular Mimics _is_. They pull Hendrix under like a pack of wolves, and he dies still reaching out for her. She is wounded as she makes her escape, and drags herself back across their lines bleeding and dizzy.

And then she wakes hooked up to an IV, and there are no more chances. She's out, and she tries to explain but they don't understand. They pin medals on her and praise her and promote her, but none of them believe her, not really.

* * *

It's fairly clear from the outset that the armies of earth don't really know what to do now that the Mimic threat has been vanquished. General Brigham gives some pretty speeches about how humanity has persevered, how their use of technology allowed them to triumph over insurmountable odds.

She sees Major Cage up on the screens, now and then. He's back to being just another of the talking heads, but there's something in his face that Rita recognizes. She saw it in the mirror often enough, after Verdun.

He's returned to America, apparently. She has done nothing with the card he gave her, not yet, but for some reason she chooses to keep it close.

She doesn't really know anything about him, is the thing. He had hundreds upon hundreds of days with her, if what he told her is true. She's had mere minutes.

* * *

It's a relief to have Dr. Carter's help, even after he's expelled from Whitehall.

Rita had been starting to doubt what had happened to her had been real, even though it made no sense for a private fresh out of training to suddenly slaughter hundreds of Mimics at her first engagement. (Not that that stopped the media from making endless hay from it; if she never had to hear either of her nicknames again, it would be too soon.)

It's frustrating to feel like she could have done more, should have learned more things about the enemy through her loops. If what Dr. Carter's analysis revealed is true, she could have ended this entire war at Verdun. If she had only been strong enough, fast enough. 

The plans for Operation Downfall feel like a second chance. If she doesn't make it out the other side, then she'll at least have done her part.

* * *

She is in a grocery store when she realizes she's never going to have to fight again. It seems like a foolish place to have an epiphany, staring unseeing at boxes in the cereal aisle. 

General Brigham and the high command have been gradually taking steps to decommission the UDF, to turn earth's forces back towards reconstruction and repair. There is much of it to be done, and they are encouraging soldiers to think how they could help with recovery efforts. The ExoSuits were originally designed for construction, after all. 

That's how she's seen Major Cage's face most recently, actually. He's their chosen spokesman for some new press tour through Europe. The live bulletin had had him reporting from Heathrow base just this evening. He'd looked tired. 

She's thought long and hard about his accounting of his loops. It's still difficult to believe that she had helped take out the omega, that with a tiny ragtag band they had managed to defeat the threat to their world. 

She wishes she had the chance to know him better. And she's starting to realize that she has time, now. That she's still alive, even after everything. Rita could use that card he gave her, and give herself the gift of seeing where this goes. 

She pulls some strings instead, finds out where he's quartered, and goes there without really thinking what she's doing. She feels as though she's surfacing, or waking up after a long time asleep. 

Cage opens the door at the second knock, face distracted like he was in the middle of something. He freezes when he sees her in the doorway, and takes in a sharp breath when she eases past him to close it behind her. 

It takes a moment for her to gather herself and face him. They're the only two people on the planet to have shared the same experience, as far as she knows. But he's still very much a stranger to her. 

That's no longer the case for him, she knows as she raises her gaze to his face. He's broken open with raw, desperate hope, but he still doesn't move. 

Still waiting for her. 

"Something on my face, soldier?" she says at last, smiling helplessly at his expression, and leans in to capture his mouth before he can reply.


End file.
